This invention relates to conveyor systems and to article holders employed in such conveyor systems.
Many conveyor systems, particularly those used in the packaging industry, have holders such as buckets, for holding one or more articles. The buckets are typically secured to a conveyor drive and carrying mechanism and the conveyor mechanism moves the buckets along a path, usually a closed path. In many conveyor systems, the path each bucket takes includes movement from a bucket loading station (where each buckets are loaded with one or more articles of some kind) to a bucket unloading station where the article in each bucket is discharged. In some conveyor systems, the bucket is in continuous movement throughout their path. In other systems, the movement is intermittent, along at least part of its path, such as at a loading or unloading station.
At die bucket loading station, sometimes more than one bucket can be loaded at the same time. Each of the loaded buckets is moved from the loading station to an unloading station at which the articles are unloaded from the bucket into something else, such as for example, another bucket carried by another conveyor, or quite commonly, into a receptacle such as a carton which is held in a carton holder. In the latter case, the carton holder itself is usually part of a carton holder conveyor system. The carton holder conveyor system comprises a series of carton holders mounted to a conveyor drive and carrying mechanism. The carton holders are moved into and out of a carton loading station by the conveyor mechanism. At the carton loading station, each article is unloaded from a bucket and into the carton held in the carton holder. The unloading of an item from a bucker into a carton is usually done while both the buckets and carton holders are continuously moving. However, since during the bucket unloading/carton loading process both the bucket conveyor and the carton conveyor are moving at the same speed and in the same direction, each bucket does not move relative to a corresponding, longitudinally aligned carton holder, thus making the transfer of an item from a bucket to a carton possible, xe2x80x9con the flyxe2x80x9d.
Design considerations in building such systems, particularly high speed packaging systems, include: (1) each bucket being appropriately sized to accommodate the article to be carried; (2) each bucket""s outlet being appropriately sized to ensure that when the article carried therein is discharged, it will feed easily into the carton.
To ensure that an article can be easily discharged from a bucket and into the carton, the bucket outlet and the carton opening are usually brought into close proximity with each other. The bucket outlet, and the carton opening are usually of substantially the same size across, although the bucket outlet might be slightly smaller in width than the width of the carton opening. This helps to reduce the chance of an article not being properly discharged from the bucket into the carton,
Each carton will usually have one or two pairs of flaps which help in sealing the carton, These flaps have a tendency to protrude out in front of the carton""s opening. To ensure that the bucket can be brought into close proximity with the carton opening, and that the flaps, particularly the side flaps, do not obstruct the opening, the flaps must be pushed back away from the carton opening. This is conventionally done for the side flaps by means of a vertical flap kicker device, which is mounted at the carton loading/bucket unloading station, and operates to push the side flaps of each carton back away from the opening. However, this flap kicker is an additional piece of machinery, which of course by its nature, may from time to time breakdown or function improperly.
Not infrequently, it is necessary for a conveyor packaging system to be reconfigured such as when different sized or shaped articles, or perhaps sometimes even the same size and shaped articles, must be fed into different sized cartons. In known systems, this will not only require adjustment to the carton holder, but will also typically require adjustment be made to, or substitution of, each bucket on the bucket conveyor system.
An example of an adjustable conveyor bucket is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,514 issued in the name of Guttinger et al. It will be appreciated that having to make an adjustment to each individual bucket as depicted in this patent, to adjust the width of its side openings, is labour intensive, time consuming and significantly adds to the downtime for the system during a changeover.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system that eliminates the need for a vertical flap kicker device for the side flaps. It also desirable to provide a system which reduces the effort involved with changeovers that are usually necessary in conventional systems, such as, for example, modifications to the system to accommodate different sized cartons.
According to one aspect of the invention, there is provided an article holder for a conveyor, said article holder comprising: a base member having an outlet side; a moving member mounted proximate said outlet side of said base member for movement relative to said base member, said moving member being movable between a first position and a second position; said moving member being operatively interconnected to an actuating apparatus such that in operation, when said holder is at a station, said actuating apparatus is activated to cause movement of said moving member between said first position and said second position relative to said base member.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided an article holder comprising: a base remember; a first side member upstanding from said base member; a second side member upstanding from said base member and spaced from said first side member; said first and second side members being generally disposed opposite each other to define an outlet; said second side member being mounted for pivoting movement relative to said first side member, said second side member movable between a first position and a second position wherein in said first position the spacing between said first and second side members is narrowed at said outlet relative to said when said second side member is in said second position; a rotator adapted to rotate said second wall member between said first and second positions.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided an article holder conveyor system having a station, said system comprising; a conveyor having a conveyor path; a plurality of article holders mounted to said conveyor in series, each article holder adapted to be moved along said conveyor path by said conveyor, each sad article holder comprising; a base member having an outlet side; a flap pushing member mounted proximate said outlet side of said base member for movement relative to said base member, said flap pushing member being movable between a first position and a second position; said flap pushing member being interconnected to a first actuating apparatus such that in operation, movement of said actuating apparatus moves said flap pushing member between said first position and said second position relative to said base member; a second actuating apparatus disposed proximate said conveyor, said second actuating apparatus co-operating with said first actuating apparatus of each article holder of said plurality of article holders in operation, such that as each article holder moves through said station, said flap pushing member of each article holder is moved between said first position and said second position by the interaction of said first actuating apparatus and said second actuating apparatus; said system operable to move each of said outlet sides of each said article holder into close proximity with a receptacle at said station, each receptacle having a pair of opposed side flaps located on either side of a receptacle opening, and said system operable to move said first actuating apparatus and said second apparatus relative to each other to cause said first actuating apparatus to interact with said second actuating apparatus to move said flap pushing member between said first position and second position to push a side flap away from said opening.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of unloading an item from an item holder into a receptacle, said receptacle having at least one side flap located at a side of a receptacle opening, said item holder comprising: a base member having an outlet side; a flap pushing member mounted proximate said outlet side of said base member for movement relative to said base member, said flap pushing member being movable between a first position and a second position; said flap pushing member being operatively interconnected to an actuating apparatus such that in operation, movement of said actuating apparatus moves said flap pushing member between said first position and said second position relative to said base member; said method including the step of moving the outlet side of said item holder relative to a receptacle such that said outlet side is in close proximity with said receptacle, said movement of said item holder causing said actuating apparatus to move said flap pushing member between said first position and second position to push said at least one side flap away from said receptacle opening.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided an article holder conveyor system having a station, said system comprising: a conveyor having a conveyor path; a plurality of article holders mounted to said conveyor in series, each article holder adapted to be moved along said conveyor path by said conveyor, each said article holder comprising; a base member having an outlet side; a first wall member mounted to said base a second wall member mounted opposite and spaced apart from said first base member and proximate said outlet side of said base member for movement relative to said base member, said first wall member and said second wall member defining therebetween an outlet, said second wall member being movable between a first position and a second position; said second wall member being interconnected to a first actuating apparatus associated with each article holder such that in operation, movement of said first actuating apparatus moves said second wall member between said first position and said second position relative to said base member; a second actuating apparatus positioned proximate said conveyor said second actuating apparatus co-operating with said first actuating apparatus of each article holder of said plurality of article holders, such that in operation as each article holder moves through said station, said second wall member of each article holder is moved between said first position and said second position by the interaction of each said first actuating apparatus of each article holder and said second actuating apparatus; said system operable to move each of said outlet sides of each said article holder into close proximity with a carton at said station, and said system operable to move said first actuating apparatus and said second apparatus relative to each other to cause said first actuating apparatus to interact with said second actuating apparatus to move said second wall member between said first position and second position to vary the size of said outlet between said first and second wall members.